You know the moment. You’ve just stepped out of a quarterly product review when the question lands—direct, unavoidable, and very public: “Why haven’t we delivered that strategic feature yet—and what’s taking so long?”
For many technology executives, it’s like standing in a kitchen mid–breakfast rush—heat rising, pans everywhere, eggs already cracking. You’re managing a dozen tabs, a dozen tools, and a dozen conflicting stories about what’s really happening. You’ve got intuition, but not alignment. What you need isn’t more data—it’s a clean, reliable workspace and a single version of the truth everyone can rally around.
In the recent webinar, “A Day in the Life: How an EVP, Product Development Leverages Value Stream Metrics for Strategic Decision Making,” Beth Weeks (EVP, Product Development at Planview) introduces a practical framework designed specifically for this shift—from scattered, reactive explanations to a disciplined, visibility-driven workflow. Instead of jumping between disconnected numbers, she demonstrates how to utilize a consistent set of value stream metrics to understand where work slows down, how capacity is being utilized, and what influences time-to-market.
It’s a modern executive operating approach—one that replaces the morning scramble with a well-run kitchen, helping leaders answer delivery questions with real data and turn visibility into faster, smarter, and more aligned outcomes.
The Scramble: Why Leaders Still Struggle to Answer Basic Delivery Questions
Beth calls out a hard truth: Executives don’t struggle because they lack capability—they struggle because their data landscape is fragmented beyond recognition.
Teams use different tools and solutions. Those tools and solutions use different workflows. Naming conventions, taxonomies, and processes vary wildly. Even the definition of “Feature” shifts from team to team.
The result is a messy, unpredictable environment where leaders:
- Can’t reconcile metrics across systems
- Spend hours (or days) assembling status reports
- Get blindsided by late-stage surprises
- Lack visibility into bottlenecks and dependencies
- Struggle to connect capacity, demand, and strategic priorities
Beth calls this the swivel-chair executive experience—jumping from tool to tool, board to board, tab to tab, attempting to reconcile mismatched data into something leaders can act on. And when that’s the norm, the problem isn’t leadership. It’s visibility.
Creating an Operating Model Grounded in Flow Metrics
Beth’s approach isn’t to add more data. Instead, it’s about normalizing data leaders already have.
Rather than adding more dashboards or reports, she focuses her approach on building a single, shared language for understanding work progress. Teams can keep using the tools they already rely on—Jira, ADO, ServiceNow, AgilePlace—while knowing that every data point rolls up into one unified, connected model.
By standardizing definitions, aligning taxonomies, and grounding every conversation in the same set of flow metrics, Beth transforms a scattered data landscape into a coherent system executives can trust. The power doesn’t come from adding more information—it comes from making existing information comparable, connected, and actionable.
Once that foundation is in place, the real value emerges: leaders can finally see across silos. Instead of debating which numbers are right, they discuss what those numbers mean—and what to do next. Flow metrics—such as Flow Time, Flow Load, Flow Efficiency, Flow Velocity, and Flow Distribution—become the common language for understanding performance across products and teams. They reveal where work moves smoothly, where it waits, and how capacity aligns with demand. Delivery reviews shift from reactive explanations to proactive conversations about flow, predictability, and outcomes. With a shared language and consistent data model, alignment stops being a manual effort and becomes part of how the organization operates every day.
The Executive Framework for a Modern Operating System
When Beth runs her product development organization, she doesn’t rely on more dashboards or reports—she relies on a system. Her operating framework, powered by Planview Viz, turns fragmented data into clear, actionable insight that drives predictable delivery.
Instead of reacting to status updates, Beth uses Viz to normalize data across tools, uncover systemic bottlenecks, and guide conversations around facts, not assumptions. The six-step framework is simple but transformative—it’s how she replaces the scramble with a system built on visibility, accountability, and evidence.
1. Normalize and Align: Build a Single Language for Work
Beth starts by eliminating chaos at the source. Before Viz, every team defined “Feature,” “In Progress,” and “Done” differently, creating a tangle of taxonomies across Jira, ADO, ServiceNow, and AgilePlace.
With Planview Viz, she normalizes these definitions into a shared model:
- A Feature in one team means the same thing across all teams
- Workflow stages follow a consistent value stream
- Delivery trends are comparable without manual translation
The result: a single, defensible view of work that executives can trust—no matter where it originates. This foundation turns data into insight and alignment into action.
2. Measure Flow Time: Understand True Delivery Speed
Predictability starts with Flow Time, the metric that shows how long work truly takes from start to finish. Viz replaces anecdotal status updates with evidence, revealing:
- End-to-end delivery duration
- Realistic baselines for forecasting
- Trends that show where improvement happens—or stalls
It’s the metric that turns uncertainty into foresight and makes executive forecasting reliable.
3. Find the Real Constraint: Where Work Waits
Most delays aren’t development problems—they’re waiting problems. Beth uses Viz to surface where work is stuck, not just where it’s slow.
Viz shows:
- How long work sits before coding
- Where reviews and approvals queue up
- Which dependencies create recurring delays
Like a well-run kitchen, the goal isn’t to make chefs move faster—it’s to keep the flow of dishes continuous and balanced.
4. Calibrate Flow Load: Balance Demand and Capacity
Leadership isn’t about asking teams to go faster—it’s about knowing when they’re already overloaded. Viz exposes when teams operate above healthy limits by visualizing Flow Load:
- When demand exceeds capacity
- How overload impacts cycle time and predictability
- Where to reset expectations or reprioritize work
This single view changes executive conversations from blame to balance.
5. Diagnose with Flow Efficiency: Find Root Causes Instantly
With Flow Efficiency, Beth moves from data collection to insight generation. Viz shows the ratio of time spent actively working versus waiting, revealing:
- Where bottlenecks appear across the value stream
- Which stages drag down overall performance
- Where leadership intervention will produce the highest ROI
Root causes that once took weeks to uncover now surface in minutes—no escalations required.
6. Lead with Clarity: Adopt an Executive View That Connects Strategy to Delivery
Beth’s framework culminates in a single executive view powered by Viz—one that unites teams, tools, and outcomes.
Executives gain:
- Standardized, comparable metrics across the organization
- Trend lines tied to strategic objectives
- Risk alerts before they escalate
- A clear narrative that connects delivery performance to business value
Instead of requesting status, leaders analyze it. Instead of reacting to surprises, they anticipate them. Visibility becomes operational, not observational.
Why This Operating Framework Matters—and How It Redefines Executive Leadership
Beth’s framework isn’t just a new way to view data—it’s a new way to lead. When executives ground decision-making in flow metrics, conversations shift from debating reports to acting on shared insights. Teams align around one version of reality, risks surface early, and predictability becomes achievable.
With visibility into flow metrics and system-level bottlenecks, leaders can finally manage the system—not chase the symptoms. Visibility becomes the foundation for strategic decisions, stronger collaboration, and faster, more reliable delivery.
It’s the shift from reacting to anticipating, from firefighting to proactive guidance, from scattered data to a single, trusted operating model. Beth’s approach replaces swivel-chair leadership with clarity, confidence, and control—showing what modern executive visibility truly looks like.
To see this framework in action—and how it transforms executive decision-making—watch the on-demand webinar and learn how to bring systemized visibility to your own organization.
